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One of the essential assets of any business is the customer database. It is the structure for all effective advertising programs, but many small business owners fail to keep one or do not accurately code it for use as a marketing tool.

You do not need to be a big corporation in order to benefit from the power of database advertising. Even a 1-person company can establish an extraordinary advantage by getting a customer contact database and finding ways to use it for strategic marketing.

The majority of all customer database software will enable you to produce custom fields. Below, I have outlined several kinds of custom fields I advise you contribute to all your client records.

Consumer Type

Every small business has four distinct client types they will certainly wish to code in the database. These are Suspects, Prospects, First-Time Buyers and Repeat Buyers. By coding these clients into your database, you will be able to take out any of these different groups for specific marketing interaction programs. Below is a summary of the four customer types.

1. Suspects – When running your company, you may get lists of individuals from business groups, tradeshows, associations, list rentals and other sources. Suspects are individuals you believe may be interested in your products and services, however, have not made any initial contact with your business.

2. Prospects – Prospects are individuals that have made some contact with your business. Perhaps they requested a free report or just called to get more information on a product or service. A prospect has revealed an interest in your business, however, has not bought yet.

3. First Time Buyers – A new buyer has made a single purchase from your business. The objective now is to convert these first-time purchasers into a repeat purchaser so you can sell them more expensive services and products.

4. Repeat Buyers – Proceed to build trust and self-confidence in your new buyers, and they will certainly become repeat purchasers. By coding this crowd in your database, you will be able to pull them quickly out for unique upsell/cross-sell offers and work to maintain and construct commitment.

The huge benefit of coding your customer database with these four consumer types is that each consumer type is at a different purchasing stage. Take out all your Suspects and grant them something for free in order to transform them to a Prospect. Take out all your Prospects and offer them something engaging to turn them into a First-Time Buyer. Take out all your First-Time Buyers and start a program to upsell and cross-sell additional services and products. Gone are the days of advertising to everyone in precisely the same method. With database marketing, you can now market by particular customer type.